


yes, there will be song

by redandgold



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Liverpool F.C., im sorry gaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 01:36:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10062002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: Liverpool is -





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anemoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/gifts).



> aka: four captains, the same scene written four times, four ways to love Liverpool, and the one way all of them know without having to learn it.
> 
>  
> 
> [basic summary](http://68.media.tumblr.com/df2d13e27a0382c54e6ba0d62d466092/tumblr_o150x2sRP31uhdfm3o1_500.png)

 

 

Above all, I would like to be remembered as a man who was selfless,  
who strove and worried so that others could share the glory,  
and who built up a family of people who could hold their heads up high and say

'We're Liverpool'.

-  _Bill Shankly_

 

 

 

**i.**

_John_

 

 

 

You can hear the blood pounding in your ears as you run. Kenny's yelling on the touchline, his own heart tinted red, and so's every other person you know on the pitch, McMahon and Molby, Beardsley and Aldridge. The decade is yours for the taking. Dazzling Liverpool. Splendid Liverpool. No other team even comes _close_.

Liverpool is - Liverpool is dancing to a song only you can hear yet everyone knows how to sing. Dancing with your eyes closed, your lips wrapping themselves around words that come so easily, your feet shuffling across the floor like you're sixteen and in your room alone, no one watching so you think you can fly.

And you were so _good._

You'd watched them, of course, even before you came. Every time they came to Vicarage Road they ran away with the spoils and you could almost never begrudge them for it, the way they played, a tremor of love through their being. Like downhill skiers, gliding in and out of a defence that seemed to disappear as they moved.

The first time you're in the side, it's magic. It's better than magic. It's red.

Anfield is singing when you step out onto the pitch against QPR, a cold, wet day in October. They're always singing and it filters down from your ears and nestles in a clenched fist just above your heart. _Hold your head up high._ You do that, you all do, this shimmering, spellbinding team of the late eighties that no one can seem to beat or beat down.

Nine hundred thousand pounds was what Liverpool paid for you. Peter takes a free kick and it comes to your feet and without thinking you hit it with your left foot, curling it into the corner of the net. Anfield gets to its feet and that's when you fall in love, truly fall in love, your teammates' (red) shirts piling onto your back, the fans' (red) scarves in the air, the warmth of the Liverpool sun that kisses your cheeks in gratitude (red, red, red).

There will be more, of course. You will write your name in amongst the legends. Rush and Hansen and Barnes, the skinny kid from Jamaica who killed racism with his feet. And maybe that's a part of it; knowing that when you play and when you are good you are just that. A player. _The_ player. Untouchable, if only when you run; so you just keep on running.

Nine hundred thousand pounds. That's all it takes for you to be sold, to Liverpool, for life.

  


 

 

**ii.**

_Jamie_

 

 

 

You step into the grounds of Melwood with a dash of wonder in your face. It's a far cry from Bournemouth, this aura of intimidation and invincibility that only grace a select few clubs in the world. This is Liverpool, real and alive and breathing as any human, and you can feel it creeping into your veins.

John is the first player you see, his smile jumping out at you the way it doesn't really do in the papers, or even the posters on your wall. Your voice seems to have been lodged somewhere in the middle of your throat.

"Hello," he says. It's like you've died and gone to heaven, and even heaven doesn't sell you your heroes. The slight accent still hasn't disappeared from his voice - you would know, you think you've seen all of his match of the day interviews - and you grin shyly back.

"H'lo."

"You're the new kid from Bournemouth, yeah?" He sticks out a hand for you to shake. You take it. It's firm and strong, and more importantly than that, it's there, in a way you never really would have dreamed.

"Yeah."

He squints at your face. "Don't go to prison, Redknapp."

You stare in confusion. "What?"

"You're too pretty go to prison." He winks. "Y'know what people would do to that face?"

 

 

 

Liverpool is - Liverpool is the breath that collectively shudders through Anfield when Michael fizzes a shot narrowly wide. That odd, wordless communique which makes everyone lift their scarves at the same time, red that would never end. It is - and you wish you could be less of a sap when you say this, or think of a more eloquent, poetic translation -  a family. The way Macca and Robbie talk at each other in those accents you still can't quite understand, as if they'd be comfortable in each other's skins (and not just each other's; everyone who grew up with the salt sea air of the Albert Dock in their lungs).

 

 

 

John teaches you a lot of things. Some of it you think you'd better not teach anyone else. Some of it you couldn't possibly hope to replicate, like his rapping, or how he can beat defenders as smooth as liquid gold.

But you can be a good person. You can do that.

 

 

 

They give you the captain's armband after John leaves - you, skinny lad from Bournemouth - and you run your fingers over the thin strip of fabric, wondering if you deserved it. You see all the new kids coming through the ranks looking at you wide-eyed, maybe the same way you looked at John once, and you spend most of your time trying to figure out why.

Stevie grins at you one day in the changing room. "You wanna know?" he asks.

You look up from where you've got the armband wrapped around your fingers. "Know what?"

He nods towards the armband. "My first England call-up, d'you remember? I was scared shitless. Couldn't go down to the dining room by myself. Thought I'd just be rotting there forever, waiting for someone to help."

Of course you remember. Barely twenty and he'd called you to come get him, trying without much luck to hide the quiver in his voice. Without thinking you'd run up and slung your arm around him, telling him that Keegan picked him for a reason, until he was in the dining room like he'd been meant to be. He looks at you now, earnest.

"That's why," he says.

 

 

 

It's the City Ground but the away end sounds like Anfield, ringing out over the sullen Forest fans with a voice never meant to stay quiet. _The sweet silver song of the lark._ You punch your fist in the air. You aren't looking at the ball the goalkeeper is picking out of the net, you're looking at them. Their faces are turned towards you, shining the way the Shankly statue glistens in the rain. There must be millions of others watching on television, the same shirts adorning their chests, the same scarves wrapped around their necks. Boys perched on their fathers' shoulders. Girls clutching their mothers' hands.

You let their song settle around you, bleeding into the blue-and-white around your sleeve. Only it isn't that colour. It's never really been.

 

 

 

**iii.**

_Stevie_

 

 

 

You aren't in love with Liverpool, you don't think, because that would mean that there was once a time when you weren't in love with it.

Your story comes together, entwined and inseparable the way the edge of the sea meets the horizon. This is a story about Steven Gerrard. This is a story about Liverpool Football Club. This is a story about the number eight burnt into the skin of your back, the armband tattooed around your bicep, the Liverbird embroidered onto your beating heart.

But it is also more than that, because enough songs have been sung about monuments. Sometimes you wish you were less impressive, that people talked about you less and understood you more. _Gerrard single-handedly drags Liverpool from the brink again. Gerrard, the talismanic captain. Gerrard the leader of men._ It isn't about that, however many cameras out there that are waiting to be kissed. You don't lead so much as strip yourself bare. You can't captain something you belong to. When you save Liverpool single-handedly it's not because you believe you can do it, it's because you believe _you_ can (which is all the difference in the world). You are not in love with Liverpool; you simply _are_. And isn't that all you've ever wanted, all you've ever dreamed about?

 

 

 

This is a story about Xabi Alonso, because it is always a story about Xabi.

The first time he comes to Melwood, Carra turns and gives you a small raise of his eyebrow as if to say, _have fun._ You blink at him curiously, a Spanish boy somehow already more at home in a suit than you'll ever be.

Everyone knows how this story goes, of course, and you've told it to yourself more times than you can remember (be it an embarrassing _who's your favourite player_ interview or a fleeting memory under your breath). He plays, you play, he blooms, you bloom. You can't understand how you used to play without him. How you're going to be able to play without him. _Gerrard - Alonso - trying to get Gerrard through here, and he has done - !_

You love Xabi, and you know that, because you remember falling in love with him. It was just the beginning of his first season and you'd lost (again) to Newcastle or Sunderland or someone or other. The dressing room was quiet as you filed in and you turned to them and said, "we go again." As you always did. Then they filed off to the showers, but one of them stayed behind.

"Because we are Liverpool, yes?" Xabi said, wide-eyed and understanding as he looked up at you, and you still think - even after watching him say _hala madrid_ and _mia san mia_ like he was the world's greatest magician and lying was just another trick - you still think he believes that.

 

 

 

Xabi is important to you, but also for another reason: when he leaves, you don't follow.

It's hard. It's harder than Chelsea, the first time, the second time, because you'd known then that you wouldn't really have gone. You could talk and put on a show but the boy in the red shirt that still lived somewhere inside of you held your heart in his fist. (Blue blood mixed with oxygen turns red, never the other way around.) But Xabi -

"It won't be the same," you say carefully, like you're trying to pass it off as a joke, "not playing with you."

He smiles as he meets your eyes, and you're struck by how transparent you always seem to be to him. His hand comes to rest in the hollow between your neck and your shoulder, and even after he's gone the warmth leaves your skin tingling.

"It will be all right, Steven," he says.

"How do you know?"

"I know you." He shrugs like it's obvious. "You don't play with. You play for."

 

 

 

That's why, you think, it matters. That's why Spain can break your heart (and it does, over and over and over again) but you're still here, on the grass in front of the Kop, bleeding, your fingers tipped with red. We go again.

 

 

 

This is a story about Istanbul, because it is always a story about Istanbul.

You will have recited this story over and over again in the years to come, played it in your head until you know everything about it; the majesty of Kaká and Shevchenko in that first half, the fifty fourth minute and the way the ball felt as you nodded it in, the penalty rebound and the boy who tucked it in, the double save, how cold the trophy had felt in your hands, against your lips.

But more than that, you remember the way they were singing at half-time. _Walk on, walk on._ Not a prayer, as so many people look back and think. Not belief. Not faith (even though they stirred up all these things in you and more). It is acknowledgement, a declaration: we are Liverpool. Breathe in and listen. We are Liverpool. We are Xabi Alonso, we are Steven Gerrard, we might be 3-0 down but we are Liverpool. No matter what comes.

 

 

 

Liverpool is - Liverpool is the way love can be translated into a right foot, into a scoreline, into song. The red confetti that never seems to stop falling from the sky. The boys in the stands who skipped school and sold their bicycles to be here. The swell in your heart as you lift the trophy into the air, but not just the trophy (a city) and not just your heart (fifty million, the same colour, suddenly in sync today and the rest of their lives).

You wrap the (red) ribbons streaming from the trophy around your fingers, feel the (red) scarf brush your neck like a reminder, listen to them shout your name but hearing something else entirely. (Who are we? - )

The drumbeat pounds through your veins, a story that will always be told.

 

 

 

**iv.**

_Jordan_

 

 

 

You don't know how it goes from this -

(you've barely been there for a year when Rodgers calls you into his office and says, "Fulham are interested, son, if you're keen.")

to this -

("What is your favourite city in the world?" asks the interviewer, and you laugh without irony: "Liverpool.")

\- but you _know_ , and maybe that's what counts.

 

 

 

Liverpool starts out as a job. You want to be clear on that. It is a rung on a ladder waiting to be climbed; maybe closer to the top than you think, maybe a stepping stone to other greatness. You'll fight for it, you'll die for it if you have to, but it isn't yours the way it's Stevie's and Carra's and Fowler's.

The first time you step out on the pitch (against Sunderland, which makes you smile) the Kop rubbishes away that notion. Liverpool is never just a job. As it turns out, they want to be clear on that, too.

 

 

It's against United you see Stevie up close for the first time. You're buzzing as your number goes up in lights and you come onto the pitch, Anfield roaring you on, red and _glory_ and red and _death_. Stevie curls a free kick into their goal like he hasn't been out for six months, and he wears the armband like he would carry the grail.

"You played well," he says gruffly later in the changing room. You look up almost shyly - this is _Steven Gerrard_ , after all, you have a _poster_ of him on your wall - and mutter thanks, rubbing the back of your neck embarrassed.

Carra looks at you strangely after Stevie leaves. "What?" you ask, slightly unnerved.

He shrugs. "Nothing. You're the first since - that he's properly praised."

The number on the back of your shirt suddenly feels heavy.

 

 

 

You learn what Liverpool isn't before you learn what it is - it's not flash play, or thrashing other teams, or winning, really. And. Funnily enough. It isn't even Steven Gerrard.

 

 

 

You have to sit down after Stevie tells you, and it feels like the ground under the Kemlyn Road has suddenly disappeared. He gives you a wry grin like everyone's reacted that way. "You'll be captain," he says, and you suppose he thinks that's a comfort.

I won't, you want to say. How can anyone but him be Captain, the silver eight flashing as he rises to head the ball into the net, the language of the city rolling off of his tongue like every time he speaks about Liverpool he's baring his soul?

He puts a hand on your shoulder. He says, "we go again."

 

 

 

Liverpool is -

 

 

 

It's the last home game of the season. Stevie has done his rounds and he's talking, now, one hand on his hip, the other with the microphone hovering just above the crest. The crowd hasn't stopped singing since - you don't know - since the beginning of time. "The club is in good hands," he's saying, and you fancy that he gave you a bit of a wink. "I wish them every success in the future."

That's when you understand. That's when you look to the side of the pitch and see Redknapp, Carragher, squint at the stands and think you see Barnes. You cannot ever be Steven Gerrard - no one, you think, will ever be - but you can be Jordan Henderson. Captain of Liverpool. Earn it like the rest of them did and have done and always will do.

 

 

 

After the game, when everyone has gone home, you and the lads go back onto the pitch. It's all quiet. The stands are empty. Some confetti still dots the grass, paper red and crinkled in the unmoving air. Adam picks up a ball on the touchline and begins to juggle it in his suit, Alberto cracks a smile.

Liverpool is - Liverpool is learning to live with the greatness that is thrust upon you. It is putting dreams on your shoulders and carrying them as far as you can without falling. It's in the way Phil dances past defenders and the way Simon sees trajectories as he yanks the ball out of the sky. It's Dejan glaring down the opposition and Mamadou biting at their heels if they get too close. Joe and Emre breathing life into midfield AG (After Gerrard). Bobby and Danny blazing onto goal, arms out in the air as they wheel away in delight, the Anfield faithful a church choir singing, _with hope in your heart_. Adam burying his face in your shoulder, one hand curled around your waist and gathering your shirt in his palm.

You pause when you're climbing the steps of the tunnel, the lads in front of you already disappearing down the corridor. Look back. The Liverbird makes its declaration still: this is Anfield. You reach a hand out to it and brush your fingers against the metal, imagining the red melting at your touch and dripping down your arm. This is. We are. For that moment, from that moment, Liverpool is - enough.

You step back and turn, take the steps two at a time. Somewhere outside Anfield there's a man with a shirt that's as as red as the names on the back. He's got a scarf around his neck like a docker, and he presses his face to the Shankly gates like he's kissing a trophy. Make us dream, he whispers, a secret he's never told anyone else, his heart heavy and his eyes tired but his body trembling with a belief too full for words. Above him, the sky is golden.

 

 

 

 

**v.**

_Y N W A_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> as ALWAYS when i am SINNING i have REFERENCES 
> 
> 1\. [John's goals against QPR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gQuqkuhG5s) (this is so funny because I also used this for ur birthday fic last year huehuheuheue)  
> 2\. [John does tell Jamie not to go to prison](http://vidzi.tv/do1sey2ng08k) (around 28 minutes, but watch the whole thing bc Jamie is so fucking obvious)  
> 3\. Jamie does help Stevie down his first England dinner thing and it's so cute, I cry - Gerrard, S., _My Autobiography_ (New York: Bantam, 2007), p. 108  
>  4\. [Jamie's goal against Forest](https://youtu.be/Q1D3NJi34XY?t=2m58s); one day someone has to write a Redders fic that skips over the injury-prone dumbness and remembers him for the good, kind, and honest to god brilliant player that he was  
> 5\. [Gerlonso goal](https://youtu.be/tHqBOd-WH4s?t=28s), yes I did watch a bunch of tribute videos, i cry  
> 6\. oK NO BUT I REALLY DO BELIEVE XABI LOVES LIVERPOOL NO MATTER WHAT HOW TRASH AND TRAITOROUS HE IS ABT THE OTHERS ;------;  
> 7\. [Half-time consolidation at Istanbul](http://kloppend.tumblr.com/post/130274433134/we-could-hear-our-fans-even-in-the-dressing-room) idk this hit me hard  
> 8\. [I know this isn't Stevie oh my god](http://68.media.tumblr.com/e96bd803f84872e6f276f88148727ec8/tumblr_nd50e0DUgG1tjid03o1_500.png) but there's something rly beautiful in the way those ribbons look I think  
> 9\. [Hendo almost left Liverpool](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/9662510/Liverpools-Jordan-Henderson-was-shocked-to-be-told-he-could-leave-Anfield.html) deluded Brendan strikes again  
> 10\. [Liverpool is Hendo's favourite city](http://kloppend.tumblr.com/post/154271359634/gerraaard-what-is-your-favourite-city-in-the) boy why  
> 11\. [The 1-1 draw against United](http://www.lfchistory.net/SeasonArchive/Game/5281) was the first game Stevie and Hendo played tgt  
> 12\. [Hendo has a poster of Stevie on his wall](http://kloppend.tumblr.com/post/131394934104/jordan-was-one-of-the-liverpool-players-i-cared) son  
> 13\. blANK BECAUSE  
> 14\. I didn't......even realise.........until........[I thought about it](https://blog-blogmediainc.netdna-ssl.com/upload/SportsBlogcom/1535649/0241348001426507592_filepicker.jpg)....... like......[fuck me up](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/13/19/041BC3AD0000044D-0-image-a-3_1442168018669.jpg)..........i hate numbers  
> 15\. Both Jamies were definitely there at the last game, idk if Barnesy was but it was a nice full circle kinda thing  
> 16\. Kinda paraphrased / paid tribute??? idk what doesn't sound like 'ripped off' the ending from Brian Reade's 44 Years With the Same Bird which is my go-to source when I have to do this fic once a year  
> 17\. [Other](http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11662/10642009/john-barnes-and-his-genius-profile-of-a-liverpool-and-watford-legend) [useful](https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2016/06/john-barnes-week-the-greatest-player-ive-ever-seen-at-liverpool/) [sources](http://thesefootballtimes.co/2016/04/24/why-john-barnes-deserves-to-be-celebrated-far-and-wide/) about Barnesy that I had to read bc i know nothing abt him  
> 18\. [Redders on Stevie](http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/405541/Jamie-Redknapp-Steven-Gerrard-Liverpool-kid) & [some feelings](https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2016/11/steven-gerrard-the-best-there-is-the-best-there-was-the-best-there-ever-will-be/)  
> 19\. [Stuff abt Hendo](http://thesefootballtimes.co/2015/03/23/in-praise-of-jordan-henderson-a-genuine-all-rounder/) and [Istanbul](http://thesefootballtimes.co/2015/05/25/the-miracle-men-of-istanbul/)  
> 20\. Honestly this was just written by trawling through Shaz's blog and her tags and also [everything on her ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi) because she's bootiful so. idk. this is basically me writing her back at her????/ w0t  
> 21\. [title](http://kloppend.tumblr.com/post/155632285779/violenceviolins-in-the-dark-times-will-there)  
> 22\. if u made it to the end - HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHAZ ILY A LOT, my carra to my gaz, my hero my mate, honestly u are #goals - not just in ur writing (even tho TRU GOALS) but in ur love for ur club and in the way u express it, in ur kickassness in skool (i know this dont question me), in ur kindness and the comments that have repeatedly made my life, in the way u r passionate abt things, and more. Thank u for writing beville that first time and 4 being my fren even tho i'm a dirty manc. im sorry if this is bad!!!!!! (u kno my essay struggles from snap) buT i hope this is at least something!!!!!!!! <3


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